Posted on 02 March 2015

The Straits Times carried a critical piece of reporting about Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Feb. 28, 2015. (The article was titled, “PM Lee Hsien Loong’s Facebook page gets more than half a million likes”.)

They wanted to know if it is about time for PM Lee to stop living in his father’s shadow now that he has acquired more than half a million Facebook Likes on his public page.

Now, for a newspaper of ST’s calibre and more than 150-year standing to ask such a question, there must be a catch: Because this question is obviously a rhetorical question.

As the answer is definitely “No”.

Before anyone says, “Oh that was obvious, let’s call it a day”, it is imperative to go through the various reasons why PM Lee cannot stop living in his father’s shadow, even though now that he has half a million Facebook Likes, which serve as some weird form of affirmation of his style of leadership and character of being.

1) Normal people stand on the shoulders of giants. For PM Lee, he can only stand in the shadow of a giant.

It is simply unfortunate that his father is Lee Kuan Yew, who is such a great man, to the point that it is impossible for anyone to do any better than him.

2) Lee Kuan Yew doesn’t even have Facebook.

It is amazing to think about how Lee Kuan Yew managed to become such a beloved leader of men growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, taking charge and bringing about modernisation plans during a time when there wasn’t even Facebook.

It must have been three to four times more difficult to govern Singapore then than now, without the use of modern technology like Intraweb chat groups, message apps and email.

Yet, he managed to do so much for Singapore.

3) And if Lee Kuan Yew actually had Facebook, he would definitely had hit the half million Likes quota way faster than PM Lee.

And he would have more fans than his son even when he is no longer the prime minister.

There you have it, all the reasons why “Can PM Lee Hsien Loong stop living in his father’s shadow now that he has half a million Facebook Likes?” is a rhetorical question.